Environmental groups whose lawsuit forced the U.S. Department of Energy to partially redo an environmental review of its Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) on Monday asked the federal judge who ordered the do-over to halt construction of the next-generation weapons-uranium hub.
While she ordered the agency on Sept. 24 to incorporate federal earthquake hazard data into the facility’s environmental documentation, Chief Judge Pamela Reeves, of the U.S. District Court in Eastern Tennessee, did not tell the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to stop building the facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge.
Days after the order came down, the NNSA determined subcontractor Bechtel National should continue construction. In the meantime, the agency would work on a court-ordered supplement analysis of the plant, featuring 2014 seismic data from the U.S. Interior Department that didn’t make it into the facility’s federally required environmental impact statement in 2011.
Continuing construction before incorporating the seismic data, the plaintiffs said in a motion to enforce filed Monday, is “inconsistent with the Court’s Opinion and Judgement.”
“NNSA’s apparent disregard for the Court’s ruling left Plaintiffs with no choice but to ask the Court to enforce its judgment,” Nick Lawton, a private attorney representing the environmental groups, said in the statement. “Typically, this type of motion is not necessary, because agencies generally comply with court orders. However, when agencies are intransigent, courts have the authority to enforce their orders, which is appropriate here.”
Reeves had not ruled on the plaintiffs’ motion at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The groups sued the NNSA in 2016, asking Reeves to block construction of the UPF and force the NNSA to consider if the sensitive weapons facility might be at greater risk of damage from earthquakes in the seismically active region.
The NNSA said last week it could take “several months” to finish the new UPF supplement analysis. The agency has previously pointed to Reeves’ order, which was silent about whether construction could continue, to justify the federal government’s decision to press on with the facility.
The NNSA has promised to Congress that it will, provided it receives requested funding for the project, complete the plant by December 2025 at a cost of no more than $6.5 billion.
The facility will process uranium into forms suitable for use in the secondary stages of nuclear weapons, and produce the secondaries themselves. Bechtel broke ground on the UPF’s Main Process Building in 2017 as a subcontractor to Y-12 prime Consolidated Nuclear Security, which Bechtel also leads.
